Honey harvesting

 5.8.2-21

 

Winter is officially here, but the weather is variable. Some days are warm and sunny, and some are wet or cold. Today we combine cold and sun for a change.  The steel roof girders for the car port have been delivered but the man who is to put all the earth back could not come last week. There is no point replacing the stone on the drive until that work is done so we are having slosh through mud every. time we go to the sheds or get into a car. Not much fun at all.

 

Josh and Indi tackled the bees last week and took out more honey than they expected. Indi has taken the frames to a friend who is going to spin them, and Josh has been working with everything left over to extract the wax, honey and honey water. The honey tastes fabulous. There is still a lot left in the hive to keep the bees over winter. I love having bees as part of our enterprise but I am fairly allergic to bee stings so I can not work with them myself.   It is quite amazing to me that Indi and Josh can get stung and have no reaction!

 

Last Wednesday I had my first covid jab and so far, I have not had any aftereffects. Less encouraging is the fact that the delta virus strain has now been found in Melbourne. This is the bad one and up until today no one could find how it arrived in the community.   There have not been enough cases here for spontaneous mutation.  Now it has been traced to an arrival from overseas, so there is hope that restrictions can start to be eased.

 

Everyone seems to be finding the lockdown very hard this time.  Usually at this time I am planning for our midwinter feast but now it is looking as if we will have to miss out on it again this year.  Our tenant CB is suffering from the isolation and has been joining us for some evening meals.  That makes 4 people to cook for but at least we all have a laugh.

 

Yesterday Edd and Josh managed to pick up planks to build the car port roof. We need to move the soil before they go up because the soil has to be lifted over the walls and this would be impossible once the roof is on.  This is a very slow building project but once again school visits are off so we can all just keep going with the building.

The goats are pregnant and not giving much milk but the bit they do give is rick and once again I am making hard cheese. Three goats have been sold to their new homes which is sad but necessary if we are to have room for the kids once they arrive.